About Truste

About Truste

Truste, also known True Ultimate Standards Everywhere, Inc, is a US company that specialises in data privacy solutions.

The company was originally formed in 1997 as a non profit. Its primary product at the time was the certification of privacy policies and issuing of its seal of approval.

In 2005 the company transitioned from a non profit to a for profit company.

The company is primarily based in the US, with an office in San Francisco. However, in the last two years it has opened a sales office in London, and an offshore center in Cebo City, Phillipines. The majority of processing and reviews of privacy policies are now conducted offshore, saving the company considerable money, however resulting in questionable quality.

In 2014 the company indicated a shift away from privacy certification, and launched the Truste Data Privacy Manager, a cloud solution that aims to allow companies to manage their privacy compliance online. This product competes with similar offerings from Nymity and CO3.

The name True Ultimate Standards Everywhere, Inc was selected after an employee competition to determine a name that could be registered as Truste Inc, was unavailable at the time. However in the UK the company operates under the name Truste Europe Ltd, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the US parent company.

In 2014 the company was fined $200,000 by the FTC and charged with deceptive business practices. The case centered around the fact the company had charged customers for privacy audits that it had never carried out. There were calls for Truste CEO Chris Babel to resign, he however ignored these calls. The damage to the the company's reputation was extensive.

In 2014 the company discontinued it lower scale Web Certification, along with a refocus on its Data Privacy Manager. The company has signifantly scaled back its certification operations.

GlassDoor report that morale at the company was low, as a result of the frequent changes to the business model.